Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing - a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specialising in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars.

the night fire

We are delighted to announce that Michael Connelly's new thriller The Night Fire will be released on 21 October 2019 in Australia and New Zealand.

Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renée Ballard come together again on the murder case that obsessed Bosch's mentor, the man who trained him to be a homicide detective.

Murder Book Podcast

Michael Connelly is hosting a new true crime podcast. Murder Book dives into a thirty-year-old Hollywood killing that tests the limits of the American criminal justice system. You can listen to the podcast on most podcast apps and at www.MurderBookPodcast.com. Listen to the trailer here.

BOSCH SIGNED UP FOR SEASON SIX

With filming on season five finished – and due to air later in 2019 – the team were thrilled to hear that they've been signed up for a sixth season.

dark sacred night now available

Even detectives have a dark side...

At the end of a long, dark night detectives Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch cross paths for the first time.

Detective Renée Ballard works the graveyard shift and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours to find a stranger rifling through old files.

The intruder is none other than retired legendary LAPD detective Harry Bosch, hunting for leads in an unsolved case that has got under his skin.

Ballard escorts him out but – curious to know what he was searching for – soon becomes obsessed by the murder of Daisy Clayton. Was she the first victim of a serial killer who still stalks the streets?

For Bosch, the case is more than personal: it may be all he has left.

But in a city where crime never sleeps, even detectives have a dark side...

'Outstanding, complex police procedural ... Bosch and Ballard, both outsiders with complicated pasts, form a perfect partnership in this high spot of Edgar-winner Connelly's long and distinguished career.' Publishers Weekly (starred review)

'Dark Sacred Night is Connelly in fine form. It’s very rare when the thirty-second book by an author leaves you desperate for the next one, but Connelly delivers every time. The first Ballard & Bosch novel is a multilayered and multifaceted mystery, chock-full of moments of heart-pounding suspense, and a conclusion that rocks Bosch’s world to its core. Hours after I’ve put the book down, I’m still recovering from its reverberations. Michael Connelly — the proven master of the genre — continues to astound.' Simon McDonald, Potts Point Bookshop

'There’s nothing like a new book from Michael Connelly for a full-body immersion in the grimey, lawless underbelly of Los Angeles – that insomniac city that thrives on money, sex, lies and murder. Dark Sacred Night delivers it in spades.

Dark Sacred Night is tight, gritty and mean – even by Bosch standards. In a year that’s packed with brilliant crime this book is going to be an absolute stand out. Michael Connelly is a relentless force. Ben Hunter, Booktopia

2017 news: a huge connelly year

For Michael Connelly fans, 2017 has seen not one but two new gripping thrillers published. The Late Show, published in July, introduced readers to a young female detective Renée Ballard and is the first in Connelly's critically acclaimed new series. Michael Connelly's second thriller this year is his 20th Bosch novel. Two Kinds of Truth is out now and marks an incredible milestone in the Bosch series.

Two Kinds of Truth

Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando police and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town’s three-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of prescription drug abuse.

Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch’s LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren’t keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison.

The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

The Late Show

Renée Ballard works the night shift at the LAPD in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.

But one night she catches two cases she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night.

As the cases entwine, they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job - no matter what the department throws at her.

Bosch: season 3

Based on Michael Connelly's The Black Echo, his very first Bosch novel, and A Darkness More than Night, season 3 steps up the life and death stakes that Bosch faces. It introduces a new world of murder and dirty cops and pits Harry Bosch against two groups of formidable opponents: one intent on framing him for a crime he didn't commit, the other set on killing him. One of the best ongoing detective series that can be watched today, season 3 of Bosch continues to raise the bar another notch and like the books it is based on offers an intelligent and intriguing police procedural.

Watch the season 3 trailer

Bosch returns for a fourth season

Season 4 of Bosch - to be aired in 2018 - promises to be even better than previous seasons. Currently being filmed, Season 4 pulls together plot lines primarily from Angel’s Flight and some carryover story lines from season 3 as well as tying up some loose ends from The Last Coyote.